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Sunday, 1 February 2015

Originally there were 14 booked in for this trip to Harescombe but on the day this ended up being 11 of psv's most hardy and they needed to be as the weather was challenging to say the least! A fierce north westerly wind was ripping through the valley which made fishing the pole long virtually impossible for most, and I hate to think what the wind chill factor was but when Brian Shanks mumbles that he cant feel his feet hands and face you know its cold!!

With Mr Burgess not in attendance it was left to Alan Healy to sort pegging and payouts and with no silverpool it was a simple case of top four, pegging wise it was decided to put two pegs at each end 15-16 and 29-30 respectively and space the rest along each straight.

With the ends of the lake being the more favoured draws especially 15-16 which apparently had been doing the business lately so when Alan drew 16 a large smile appeared on his face in anticipation of another good day after last weeks golden peg bagging session down emerald pools, and with the wind directly off his back and that of young Ryan Radford who drew 15 leaving them both with flat calm pegs things were looking good for the pair, unfortunately for Alan it was a case of hero to zero as he ended up with a big fat DNW!

At the other end of the lake and with the wind blasting them straight in the face was serial draw bag Mark Radford on 29 a peg that always produces a few fish and on 30 was yours truly and with the conditions I was really unsure what to expect, as it happens the match itself was a fairly close affair with no one really sure who'd won and although the weights were not big most had a few bites despite the conditions.

Due to the landslide Mark had a bit of shelter and calmer water and was able to fish long at the start making the most of it catching several f1s against the island. On peg 3 Lee Waller had the same idea and started long but soon gave it up after being turned round on his box several times despite this he was still catching the odd f1, up the other end there was elastic being pulled especially Lee Williams on 13 and Si Belcham on 7, Si in particular was fishing a steady match at five metres and although not bagging was putting f1s and silvers in the net at regular intervals.

My match started bad it felt like I was being cut in two by the wind and couldn't feel my fingers after ten minutes which made baiting up hard work! Id gone with a plan to fish bread long on the far shelf, shipping over and laying in at the start the float buried but on shipping back the fish came off, the next two put ins the same result and I then had a torrid half hour trying to present over and constantly being blown around so gave up the line, a rethink was in order so a maggot line was opened at six metres towards the island and also three metres left down the ledge and also a caster line to my right in the corner that didn't really produce, by constantly dripping in maggot and micro tho I started to get a few bites and put a few f1s in the net, it was a case of just waiting and lifting at any indication as tiny little dinks was as positive as it got from the shy biting f1s, for some reason tho with a hour and a half to go all my lines just went completely dead and in that time I only had three bites two from 12oz skimmers and one from my biggest fish of the day a lunking great 5lb f1 which was to prove a match winning fish!

So first on the day was myself with 39lb 8oz

second went to Si Belcham with 35lb 14oz

third was Mark Radford with 30lb 14oz and last in the frame was Lee Williams with 26lb 14oz

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